
Gass. 
Book. 



CHAEACTER AKD GREATNESS 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



' A DISCOURSE, 



»3, 1886 



BY REV. E. HINGELEY 



THE 



CHARACTER AND GREATNESS 



kit* 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



A DISCOURSE. 



ID E Xj I "V B R. E 3D APRIL, 23, 1835. 




BY REV. E. HINGELEY, 

Pastor of tlie M. IC. CUuruli, Mouongahula City, Pa. 



.s 



3: 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



April 24, 1865. 
Rev. E. Hinqelet, 

Dear Sir: — In the spirit of the patriotic and admirable Discourse delivered 
by you yesterday, on "the character ot our deceased president, Abraham 
Lincoln," we respectfully ask a copy for publication. 
Yours truly, 
G. V. LAWRENCE, J. R. HAZZARD, 

E. L. KING, ¥M, WICKERHAM, 

ABRAHAM VANVOORHES, SAMUEL KING, 
WILLIAM M'CLURE, JOS. ALEXANDER, 

JOS. WILSON, J. T. FERNEE, 

CYRUS UNDERWOOD, G. W. GROVE. 

DANIEL PIERCE, 



To Hon. G. V. Lawrence, Dr. E. L. King, A. Vanvoorhes, and others. 

Qentlemen : — I am happy to learn that my discourse commends itsolf to 
your approval, and herewith place it at your disposal. 

Yours respectfully, 

April 26, 1865. E. HINGELEY. 



SERMON. 



Tavo thoughts oppress and embarass me on this occasion ; the 
greatness of my subject, and the needlessness of my task. I can- 
not say anything to increase the lustre of his fame, or that -will 
enshrine him more sacredly in your affections. " Then why attempt 
a eulogy on the life and character of Abraham Lincoln?" To 
satisfy our own grief and gratitude, and to pay a just tribute to 
manly, noble worth. As a motto for this address, I have chosen 
the anguish-riven cry of Israel when they heard the chief whose 
prudence, fortitude and valor had crushed their foes and saved 
their country, lay in his own triumph and blood : 

"All the people of Israel greatly bewailed him. They wept 
many days, and said, why is that great man dead who saved the 
people of Israel ?" 

The first question we propose for calm discussion is — 
Is the name of Abraham Lincoln worthy of being enrolled upon 
the catalogue of great men ? We affirm it is, and might argue that. 
The position he occupied entitles him to this honor. You need 
not remind us " that merit, not position makes a man great." 
"We know it, and reply, no man without merit could, under the 
circumstances, rise to that position. Let the man who denies this 
solve for us this problem: U A boy raised in a jloorless log cabin 
of the West till he was twenty- one years old, working his way to 
eminence in the legal 'profession, to honor in Congressional halls, 
and finally elected President of the United States ; elected a 
second time to that position of honor, and dying at the compara- 
tive early age of fifty-six.'' Could any but a great man rise so 
high — great in the highest, noblest sense of that word? The 
tories of England, in the face of a like fact, have lor years been 



6 

trying to belittle that great man, over whose grave their nation is 
now weeping, Richard Cobden. Now that he is dead, his most 
inveterate foes, viewing his humble origin, and the unfavorable 
circumstances of his birth and life, and the high and honorable 
position which he, in spite of those circumstances attained unto, 
pronounce him a " problem of greatness." The Times, viewing 
him in this light, says, " He was unquestionably great ; " and his 
rancorous enemy, D'Israeli, says " he was without doubt thegreatest 
political character that the upper middle class of this country has 
yet produced, an ornament to the House of Commons, and an honor 
to England." The rule is safe, legitimate, and logical ; and if 
under it "England's working man " could attain a seat in the 
British Parliament, be twice offered a seat in the British Cabinet, 
refuse a baronetcy, win the respect of the civilized world, and 
when he died, at the age of sixty, his death evoke a nation's tears, 
we say "he was a great man," surely we may apply this rule to our 
beloved President, saying, he too is great, who, under greater 
disabilities could rise to higher honor in a shorter period of time. 
Let me express the conviction that America and England have 
lost two of their noblest friends and greatest statesmen in the 
death of Abraham Lincoln and Richard Cobden. 

Our friends in Europe — and, thank God ! we have many — have 
fallen into a gross misconception of the character of our chief 
ruler. The cause of it is this : they read of his humble origin, 
his lounging manner, his huge hands and feet, and his funny 
stories, and they believe the shameless slanders of home traitors 
who have ransacked the English language to find epithets to cari- 
cature him, "idiot, buffoon," and the like ; then they have asked, 
" How came such a man to be elected President of the United 
States ? " and attribute it to the accidents of our popular elections. 
Why do they not penetrate beneath that rough surface to discover 
the native giant strength of mind and integrity lying beneath that 
ruggedness of nature and of form ? Does it follow that, because a 
ruler does not always strut, that he is never dignified ? Because 
he is not always courtly, fastidious and elegant, he is not a gentle- 
man ? Because a man sometimes has a light heart he can never 
have a heavy mind ? If it does, I do oot know where lay Cob- 



den's greatness, for the English " weaver " was as rough as the 
American "rail-splitter." When he went to Paris to negotiate 
with the Emperor the most important of European treaties, the 
French were as much shocked and convulsed at his thick-soled 
boots and seedy coat, as some of our democratic friends were when 
Mr. Lincoln told Lord Lyons his first " little story , " and when 
the Emperor sent him to his hotel in his own state coach, and 
Cobden, recognizing in one of the liveried, powdered footmen an 
old village school-fellow, stretched out his hand, and cried, " Why, 
Tom, is that you? " " Yes, Dick, it is. I knew you, but dared 
not speak to you ; but, since you have broke the rule, how are 
you, old friend ? " the grandees were shocked at such vulgarity. 
Let me remind our aristocratic friends on the other side, that Mr. 
Lincoln never did such a vulgar thing as that, and if such hearty 
naturalness did not militate against the greatness of one, why 
should it against the greatness of the other. In viewing the 
character of Mr. Lincoln, we must look at him through this haze. 
If regard for the feelings of others, if kindness of heart and adap- 
tation to the circumstances of others, constitutes a gentleman, 
there were few men so refined and tender, so kind and gentlemanly 
as he. Every one found him easy of access, and when great state 
occasions came which required dignity and courtliness, every one 
who has seen him on such occasions, has remarked his courtly 
dignity and unconstrained grace. Mr. Everett, one of the most 
refined and dignified of Americans, after observing him on such 
occasions, has pronounced him " the peer in deportment of any 
one present." We are too much accustomed to guage cotempo- 
rary merit by these external, superficial tests ; let us penetrate 
the outward germ, and view the peer without his robes, the king 
without his crown. 

There was no accident in the election of our President. He was 
chosen for strength of mind, not beauty of person. He was elected 
for his sterling integrity, honest worth, and absorbing love of 
country, not etiquette. Here was one evidence of this : Stephen 
A. Douglas was by popular instinct called " the little giant," and 
who so worthy of such a name as he who could cope with a Webster, 
a Seward, and a Sumner on Congressional floors, and always give 



as much as he received. But I appeal to any candid man, if, 
when Judge Douglas measured strength with President Lincoln, 
tie did not find his equal ; to say the least, such a man, measured 
by such a standard, was great enough to legislate tor any people, 
or rule any nation; so we thought, who elected him upon his merit 
to govern ourselves. 

There is another phase of this subject. Europeans are apt to 
sneer at the freaks of our popular elections. With their sneer I will 
buttress our position. It would not be a difficult matter to prove 
that there is no nation whose citizens are so generally intelligent, 
especially upon home politics, as our own. Two reasons may be 
assigned for this: our admirable system of education, and the 
fact that every man enjoying the franchises of his country, is in- 
terested in its politics. The point is, that 1,866,452 voters 
thought Mr. A. Lincoln competent to guide the destinies of this 
great nation, in the most critical period of its history. Are they 
not as so many intelligent verdicts to his superior worth and 
wisdom? Give the franchise to educated Prussia, or Christian 
England; let them bring out their strongest, best men, and by 
large majorities elect one to the Premiership, and would not that 
be considered prima facia evidence that he is great and wise, 
strong and worthy ? Will not the same rule apply to ourselves, 
and to our dear President ? We are as intelligent as they, as 
discriminating as they, the office is as high, and as important. 
We have as many good and great men to select from ; we know 
as much about them and our wants. It is, therefore, an insult to 
reason to deny his qualification for the high office he filled, and 
the fact that, under circumstances the most unfavorable, he rose 
to that high qualification and was elevated to the high position of 
President by the free, intelligent suffrage of an enlightened people, 
presumptively establishes his greatness, and you may depend upon 
it, that in future editions of such works as ; ' Men who have risen," 
his name will stand high in that list of noble chivalry, " who being 
dead, yet speaketh," men, the mention of whose names rouse the 
ardor of the manly, quicken the pulse of the free, and stir the 
world's great heart to virtue, liberty and God. 

But the question of his greatness must, after all, be decided by 



9 

the question, " How did he maintain himself in and discharge the 
duties of his honorable and exalted position ?" It is quite possible 
for the rank to be larger than the man ; not so much in republican 
as in other forms of government, where a man often has so much 
the blood of his ancestors in his reins, as not to leave room for a no- 
ble, free, generous, original impulse of his own. If A. Lincoln was 
not a great man, his position at the bar, on the forum, or in the 
Presidential chair will soon make it manifest. I affirm he was 
great, for 

He ahvays proved himself equal to every position in which he 
was placed, and every emergency that came upon him. 

As a lawyer, we could produce the opinions of the best advo- 
cates of the nation to his ability, integrity, originality, his good- 
ness of heart, and his success. " I never knew Lincoln to do a 
mean act in his life," says his most intimate friend and business 
partner, the veteran Lawyer Stewart, and the conscientious Close 
said, "God never made a finer man; pure, candid, upright, unblem- 
ished, incapable of falsehood, and without one base or sordid trait." 

As a political debater, judge of him by his public speeches, or 
read the testimony of his political opponents. " He was too kind 
for bitterness, and too great for vituperation." Says another, and 
he too the great and venerable Crittenden, " I have heard all the 
eminent statesmen of the past and present generation, and candor 
compels me to say, he is the most logical and gentlemanly speaker 
I ever listened to." 

As a legislator, his record is with us. Study it well, and by it 
judge the man. It is time for slander to have talked and written 
itself out of breath, and justice to be done to one of whom a great 
statesman said, " There was never elected to the House of Repre- 
sentatives, a purer, a more intelligent, and loyal representative 
than Abraham Lincoln." Here we must utter our dissent from 
the expressed opinion of one of his most ardent friends and admir- 
ers, Governor Andrew^, of Massachusetts, who says, " Perhaps 
little that he spoke or wrote will pass into literature, yet " — in 
this, the next sentence, we fully agree — " few men have ever writ- 
ten or spoken -with greater effect, or to better purpose; " and for 
this reason we believe that much that he wrote and spoke will pass 



10 

into literature. His speech at the Cooper Institute is already a 
classic ; his first inaugural, in tender, earnest expostulation, and 
firm, weeping resolve that the Republic shall not be divided or 
overthrown, will be as immortal as " Washington's Farewell Ad- 
dress." His "Proclamation of Emancipation," will that ever be 
u out of print?" His impromptu- address at Gettysburg will be in 
the school books of our posterity when the graceful oration of 
Edward Everett is forgotten. His last inaugural, when will its- 
echoes die ? Hear its closing, manly pathos : " Fondly do we 
hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all 
the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of 
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn 
with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as 
was said three thousand years ago, so, still it must be said that 
the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. 

" With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness 
in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 
finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care 
for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his 
orphans ; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a 
lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 

We may concede whatever his opponents may in reason allege 
against him, yet claim with these concessions that in the clearness, 
robustness and sagacity of his understanding, his sincere love of 
truth and absorbing love of country ; his undeviating purpose to 
do right ; his confidence in, and his subordination to the guidance 
of Providence ; his will of unusual firmness and his consistent 
regard and treatment of himself as the servant of the people, he 
had few superiors in our Congress chambers. 

As a President let his works praise him. In the year 1860 
the freemen of the United States elected, as was their privilege, 
Abraham Lincoln, to the Presidency of this nation, and he at once 
promptly and fearlessly entered upon the duties of his high office. 

Be assured, my fellow citizens, it was not a chaplet of roses we 
then placed upon his brow, but, rather a crown of thorns ; and if, 
as some of his most implacable foes have affirmed he became " King 



11 

Abraham the First,'' it was not a seat of down he occupied ; it was 
not a sceptre of ease we placed in his hand. The embarrassments 
of his position, the arduous toils of his position, the clangers of his 
position, who can estimate them ? That he was surrounded by 
implacable foes and infamous traitors, you know ; that he was re- 
sisted by a gigantic rebellion, you know ; and, how patiently he 
sustained himself under those embarrassments ; how faithfully he 
performed those duties ; how courageously, almost recklessly, he 
braved those dangers ; how magnanimously merciful he deported 
himself towards those foes; and how triumphantly he has shorn 
that rebellion of its strength, dwarfed its dimensions, and crushed, 
yes, thanks be unto God! crushed it beneath the foot of his lawful 
authority, we all know. 

We cannot form a truer conception of a man tban by judging 
him by his works. " Men live in deeds, not words." If you 
would form a just idea of the power which lay within that great 
man's throbbing, yet seemingly quiet heart ; if you would form a 
just idea of the latent wisdom which lay beneath that genial face, 
if it was a little homely, you have only to compare — no contrast — 
the then and now of this wicked rebellion. Then, Washington it- 
self was not only environed by treason, but traitorsswarmed through- 
out the army, in the navy, and the Senate Chamber, they lurked 
in every office of the city and country. Now, the dear old flag 
waves over rebellion's capital ; now the Commander-in-Chief of the 
rebel forces is our prisoner upon parole, and the President of the 
Confederacy, vagabond-like, is "fleeing when no one is pursuing," 
and the faithful hand of old gallant Anderson has just reared the 
same flag over the dismantled Avails of Sumter, which four years 
ago was insulted, dishonored, and infamously displaced by the 
accursed Palmetto rag of South Carolina. 1 wonder what Gov- 
ernor Picking thinks of our deceased President? I do not care 
much what he thinks, but I am sure chat even he must say our 
President is a great man; for, if you remember, he defied the 
United States and all the combined powers of the world to displace 
that accursed Palmetto Hag. I say, contrast the then of this 
mighty rebellion when he, over whom we weep, and the nation 
weeps, and the whole civilized world will weep when it hears of his 



12 

death, took the reins of government, "with the dwarfed, crushed, 
dishonored, accursed, -writhing rebellion, now he has laid them 
down, and tell me if we can over estimate the worth of the Pilot, 
who has stood unflinchingly at the helm throughout this terrible 
storm, and guided our grand, noble ship safe to her old moorings? 
We were rejoicing over these triumphs, thanking God, shaking 
hands with each other in happy congratulation that we had chosen 
him to finish the work so bravely begun, so heroically continued, 
and so triumphantly brought to secession's " last ditch." And if 
we were happy, how much more might his heart expand and thrill 
with joy, who had borne the burden, the crushing burden, of a 
great nation upon his heart, and mind, and hands ? Victory, 
peace, could bring to no other heart such joy, such rest, such honor, 
such gratitude. I do not wonder that his nature, always genial, 
should seek amusement, and his mind and energies, so long taxed 
and strung to their severest tension, should seek relaxation. Re- 
member, he had just come from Richmond, and for the first time 
mingled with the dear associates of home and jubilant home friends, 
and being pressingly invited to the theatre, and his presence being 
announced, he went, saying as he started, " I would not go, but 
the people would be disappointed, General Grant and myself being 
announced to be there." Scarcely had he taken his seat, when a 
villain, a miscreant, a wretch, yea, summing up all odium in one 
name, a Northern Secessionist, pierced his noble brain, exclaiming, 
in sentiment the most foreign and unnatural " Sic semper tyrannis." 
0, Heaven! where were thy thunderbolts? Angels of God! 
were ye encamped, or how restrained ? Now, he's dead ! No, 
the gojd never die. Yet, he is dead to us ! no, he lives enshrined 
in our heart of hearts ! However saddening andj unwelcome the 
thought may be, our noble President, Abraham Lincoln, is dead ! 
and to-day, at this hour, may we not say as Israel of old said, as 
they greatly bewailed him, " Why is that great man dead who 
saved his people ? " Ah! friends, there is the culminating proof 
of his greatness — "_ZZe saved the people." Saved us when the 
verdict of the civilized world was so hastily and so ungenerously 
given against us that we were lost ! Saved us when thousands of 
Northern citizens pronounced against him, his party, and his 



13 



policy, ceaselessly crying, " the South never can be conquered ! " 
Saved us, after his weak predecessor had well nigh ruined us by 
the infamous doctrine that " there was no power in the constitu- 
tion to coerce a sovereign state." Saved us when state after state 
seceded, seizing our forts, navy yards, arsenals, mints and custom- 
houses ; robbing, dishonoring, and hurling defiance at our teeth. 
Saved U8 by re-capturing every fort, conquering and bringing back 
every state, until our starry flag gleams in brightness over every 
one, and the Union, free empress of States, unagitated by the 
passions, unmoved by the dissensions of any one of them, watches 
again the rights and fame of all, once more reposes anions the 
mountain summits of her power, holding in one hand the fair olive 
branch of peace, and in the other the thunderbolt and meteor flag 
of war. Is he not a great man who hath done this ? Yes. Let 
Northern traitors blend their voices with Southern rebels to de- 
fame him. Let those "vipers bite the file ; " he has realized the 
prophetic vision of brave old John Crittenden when he said, "There 
is a niche in the temple of fame, near to Washington, which shall 
be occupied by the statue of him who shall save his country. 
Mr. Lincoln has a mighty destiny. It is for him to be but a Presi- 
dent of the people of the United States, and there will his statue 
be." There it is ! He has won it ; and the time will come when 
no heart will be found ingenious enough to refuse it, nor tongue 
depraved enough to deny it. 

But he is dead ; assassinated ; murdered ! Yonder he lies, a 
great man stretched upon his own trophies, in his own blood. It 
is not for me to uncover that body, blood stained and ghastly, to 
expose to your eyes the mournful reason why your country, hu- 
manity, and religion are in tears to-day. With mingled sobs and 
tears we admire the past, regret the present, and tremble for the 
future. Why is that great man dead ? After so many great 
deeds, was there nothing further Jor him to do? Ripe for his 
reward, had the time come for him to receive the crown reserved 
for those who have finished a glorious career ? Placed we too 
much confidence in him ; loved we him too dearly ? Answer not 
these questions. But another I will ask, and I ask it, too, in the 
shrieking, agonising cry of his beloved wife: 



14 

"Why did he kill him ?" or, in thy language of his favorite, 
stricken son, Thaddeus, to the veteran Sumner,' "'0, sir! can you 
tell me what my dear father ever done to that man, that he shot 
him dead ? " A bleeding nation, an astonished world, a weeping 
church, stricken humanity, unites with thee, thou grief stricken boy, 
in that simple, suffering question. What ? Was it to gratify private 
revenge for personal injuries received ? No ; Mr. Lincoln was too 
kind and tender-hearted to injure any one. " He never had a 
•personal enemy," Was it for the advancement of religious or 
political freedom? Was it — Was it prompted by the accursed lust 
of power, or greed of gold ? Was it to advance the interests of 
the Confederacy, or secure easy terms for the reception of traitors ? 
O, terrible mistake ! If this was it, what a terrible awakening 
there will be to this cruel and bloody dream ! A shot on fort 
Sumter four years past united us, and on the fourth anniversary 
of the day that flag was taken down, a shot from a Northern rebel 
sympathizer has united us in a more terrible earnestness that rebel- 
lion shall be crushed, and slavery, the cause of rebellion, must die. 
It is the moral defeat of treason. 

Let me express the opinion that the motive to this act was to 
secure an immortal notoriety to John Wilkes Booth, and well hast 
tbou succeeded, infamous man ! Henceforth thy name is accursed ! 
Here is the problem as we alone can resolve it : a man without a 
moral nature coveted eternal infamy, and to secure it, murdered 
the greatest man of the nation and the best ruler of the age. Had 
I no other name by which to call thee, thou wretch! "henceforth 
1 would call thee devil ! " 

Another thing, he has secured an immortality of glory and 
renown to his victim ; the dramatic unity of whose life was then 
complete, full, climatic, and needed only this apotheosis to conse- 
crate him to immortality, and that at this very moment of time it 
was accomplished, adding, in the moment of his triumph, martyr- 
dom to his other claims upon our veneration, gratitude, and love. 
Then, what an analogy of glory there is in the manner of his 
death. Thousands of our good, noble soldiers have died by the 
bullets of the enemy for whom his generous heart has wept and 
could have Lied. In life he was joined to them in the spirit of un- 



15 

flinching patriotism -which inspired him, and " in death tl ey aro 
not. divided." By a common inference they have gone to the grave, 
hut his fame shall hist "long as the sun and moon endiireth. 
Future generations will wonder why he was so little appreciated 
in this, even hy his most ardent friends, and the hitterncss of his 
enemies shall he their pain and astonishment. Long after his 
ashes have mingled with the soil of his own great State, statesmen, 
heroes, poets, the virtue, wisdom, patriotism, and wealth of tho 
land shall visit his grave to shed affection's tears over the second 
saviour of his country. Yes, and as Virginia has desecrated Mount 
Vernon, and proved herself unworthy of its relics, let the dust of 
Washington he urned and taken and laid by the side of our Presi- 
dent, the brave, prudent, tender-hearted, magnanimous Lincoln, 
with this epitaph : Washington the procurer, and Lincoln the 
martyr of freedom. And, if ought else is needed, let it be Lin- 
coln, the man of lofty purpose, single eye, and loving heart ; he 
of a giant's strength, a hero's courage, a child's simplicity, a 
woman's tenderness, and apostle's love, a martyr's will ! 

Let us plant the cypress over the nation s grave — though, thanks 
be unto God, it is not the grave of the nation. Next to God, our 
thanks are due to his honored instrument, Abraham Lincoln. But 
it is, and ever shall be the nation's grave, and we will moisten it 
with our tears, and with dimmed eyes we will look upward, tliank- 
ing God that we have such a President to venerate and weep for. 
Let us also try and learn the lessons of his life, and emulate the 
virtues of his character. Fortitude in adversity. Moderation in 
triumph. Mercy in victory. Oh ! thou God of all consolation, 
though we may never hear again those mild and judicious accents, 
"Let us be very sober ; " though we may never hear the benig- 
nant cry of him, who, on the anniversary of thy Son's death, was 
so cruelly slain, "Let justice be tempered with mercy ; " may we 
hear the old pathetic cry of Him hung for us upon the cross, 
" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
" A martyr to the cauie of man, 

His blood is freedom's eucharist, 
And in the world's great hero list, 

His name shall lead the van. 

And raised on Faith's white wings unfurl'd 
To heaven's pure light ; of him we say, 
He fell upon the selfsame day 

A greater died to save tho world." 



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